Eduardo Menem, who is the brother of the President of Argentina Carlos Menem, gave his rallying cry as he rejected a new union between Britain and the Argentinian governments.

The nations released a joint statement promising closer co-operation on areas of mutual interest such as trade and security in a bid to cool tensions still evident from the brief but bitter war over the remote islands in 1982.

However Mr Menem, a former national senator, said parts of the text amounted to a violation of the Argentinian constitution which he helped to write in 1994.